The subject invention relates to a method of making a spinner for fiberizing glass; to the spinner made by the method; and more particularly, to a method of forming fiberizing holes in the spinner sidewall by a process utilizing an electron beam perforating process wherein a backing material used in the process is deposited on the walls of the fiberizing holes to increase the corrosion resistance of the fiberizing holes and the service life of the spinner.
High temperature rotary glass fiberization processes fiberize molten glass by using centrifugal forces to pass the molten glass through rows of small diameter fiberizing holes in the annular peripheral sidewalls of spinners. These spinners, which typically have from several hundred fiberizing holes to tens of thousands of fiberizing holes in the spinner sidewall, are typically operated in a high temperature oxidizing environment (e.g. an oxidizing environment having temperatures of 1600° F. and greater) and at rotational speeds of over a thousand revolutions per minute (e.g. rotational speeds of 1500 revolutions per minute and greater). In this high temperature oxidizing environment and at these high rotational speeds, the corrosive effects of glass on the spinner alloy forming the walls of the fiberizing holes in the spinner sidewall causes the fiberizing holes to enlarge in diameter. This enlargement of the fiberizing holes eventually results in loss of fiber diameter and/or length control whereby a portion of the fibers produced will be too large or too small in diameter, to long or short in length, and/or the fiber diameter distribution of the fibers produced by the spinner will no longer meet product specifications and the spinner must be taken out of service.
Currently, the fiberizing holes in spinners used for producing glass fibers in the glass fiber industry are created by electron beam perforating processes and laser perforating processes. An electron beam perforating process utilizes a backing material on the reverse side of the spinner sidewall being drilled that produces large volumes of gaseous material through an interaction between the backing material and an electron beam of the electron beam perforating process. With regard to the formation of each fiberizing hole in a spinner sidewall by an electron beam perforating process, the gaseous material created by the interaction between the backing material and an electron beam of the process expands through the hole in the spinner sidewall created by the electron beam and ejects molten material of the sidewall, created by an interaction between the electron beam and the sidewall, from the hole to form a fiberizing hole. Often a thin layer of the backing material is deposited on the wall of the fiberizing hole thus formed. Current backing materials used in electron beam perforating processes are often made of copper, zinc, and other materials that adversely affect the corrosion resistance of the fiberizing holes formed by the process. These materials can lead to the formation of low temperature eutectics in the wall of the fiberizing hole produced by the process, which lower the melting point of the spinner sidewall material forming the wall of the fiberizing hole, and thereby adversely affect the corrosion resistance of the wall of the fiberizing hole. Thus, increasing the corrosion resistance of the fiberizing holes produced by electron beam perforating processes to molten glass in a high temperature oxidizing environment where the spinners are being operated at high rotational speeds to prolong the service life of these spinners is very desirable.